Monday, October 17, 2011

"For the same reason that Zach decided to come out, I too, no longer wanted to hide this part of my life. There have been too many tragic endings and too many cases of bullying because of intolerance... as a journalist, I don’t want to be the story, but as a gay man I don’t want to stand silent if I can offer some inspiration or encouragement to kids that might be struggling with who they are."

-- ABC News Anchor Dan Kloeffler on the fact that he essentially admitted to being gay on national television after the network ran a story on Zachary Quinto's recent coming out

Man, it's gotta be a nightmare being an aging intolerant conservative right now. I mean, it was bad enough when there was just a multi-cultural black guy in the White House -- but these days average people are storming Wall Street and protesting banks across the country and around the world, a Mormon who used to be the governor of Massachusetts is the best the GOP can do for a presidential candidate, and now network news anchors are coming out of the closet live on the air.

I wonder what the breaking point will be -- that one world-rocking development that'll finally lead thousands of panic-stricken tea baggers to either lock themselves in their basement bunkers or go the full lemming.

I just keeping thinking of Tobey Maguire at the end of Pleasantville haranguing J.T. Walsh about how everything's changing and there's nothing he can do to stop it -- all in an effort to make him lose his mind.

You know, now that I think about it, Glenn Beck kind of looks like Walsh's character in that movie -- they have the same pudgy face and stupid haircut. And just like "Big Bob," Beck is constantly trying to reassure his terrified, white middle-class constituency that everything's going to be okay.

"What do we do, Bob?"

"Well, we're safe for now -- thank goodness we're in a bowling alley."

I'm a veteran network news producer and manager, a regular contributor to the Huffington Post and the Daily Banter, and a writer who's been featured in the New York Observer and the Village Voice. I'm also the author of a book called Dead Star Twilight and the founder of DXM Media, a firm specializing in television production as well as social media strategies and consulting. On top of all that nonsense, I'm the co-host of "The Bubble Genius Bob & Chez Show" podcast and radio show with Bob Cesca. To find out more about me and/or throw money at me, go here. You can contact me at deusexmalcontent@gmail.com or chez@dxmmedia.com

A special edition of my full-length memoir, Dead Star Twilight, is now available in e-book format on a pay-what-you-want basis. The downloaded is absolutely free; if you choose to pay for it, just click the "donate" button below the download link. Pay whatever you'd like. Pay nothing. It's your choice.

"As a blogger, Chez Pazienza is filled with outrage, passion and insight -- delivered with a distinctive point of view, a wicked sense of humor, and a two-fisted style of prose. In Dead Star Twilight, he turns all these on himself -- and produces a fierce, funny, disturbing, but ultimately uplifting memoir. This is the book A Million Little Pieces dreamed of being."

"Pazienza could be accused of many things... but he could never be faulted for dumbing us down. His glued-shut prose and bawdy metaphors provide a deeply appreciated, and hilarious, literary diversion."

-- Gelf Magazine, "Insolence Is Bliss," June, 2008

"Snarly, not snarky."

-- Andrew Breitbart

"A delusionally subjective, condescending blog, filled with hostile generalizations and a million exaggerations."

-- Paul Krassner, 60s counter-culture icon

"You're the Antichrist."

-- Mary Elizabeth Williams, Salon.com

"It is truly sad that someone like Mr. Pazienza has a public forum to express his views. In a more civilized time he would, at best, be confined to an institutio­n for the criminally insane or, at the very least, marginaliz­ed from civilized society."